A bus carrying foreign tourists caught fire around midday today at Qafa e Kalasë in Berat while traveling toward the castle. The bus, with license plate AB 917 UE, was carrying 52 passengers, including children.

According to preliminary information, the first sparks were seen at the front of the vehicle, near the engine.

The driver stopped the bus immediately, and the passengers managed to get off in time before the flames engulfed the entire vehicle. None of the tourists were injured.

After sparks appeared in the engine compartment, the fire spread rapidly, engulfing the entire bus. Numerous firefighters and police officers arrived at the scene and worked to extinguish the flames.

The bus was completely gutted by the fire. The flames also engulfed a Mercedes-Benz SUV that was parked near a home.

The owner was unable to move the vehicle in time, and it was severely damaged by the fire.

Preliminary suspicions are that the fire was caused by an electrical spark in the bus’s engine.

Meanwhile, the bus driver, Ervis Dyrmani, from Durrës, was taken to the police station for questioning about the incident.

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The altercation took place at a bar on Golem beach, where the manager and an employee working in the beach area managed by Diamma Resort assaulted five Turkish tourists with blunt objects.

Sources said that David Kondo, 33, and Eluert Qose, 37, were arrested after seriously injuring two of the tourists. They will face charges of “Intentional serious injury,” committed jointly, and “Disturbing the peace.”

Criminal proceedings were also initiated without detention against a bartender and a security guard for “Intentional minor injury,” committed jointly, and “Threatening,” after they punched and threatened the other three Turkish holidaymakers.

Diamma Resort in Golem is managed by Asemina Çokani.

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A Data Centrum survey, discussed on the program “Now with Erla Mëhilli,” has identified the nationalities of foreign tourists who have chosen to visit Albania.

The study included 1,000 tourists. The data show that 83% of respondents come from European countries, 8% from Asia, 3% from Oceania, 3% from North America, 2% from South America and 1% from Africa.

In the country ranking, France takes first place, accounting for 17% of the tourists surveyed. Italy follows with 13%, while Germany accounts for 12%.

Another 12% of participants were grouped into the “other” category. This includes visitors from countries that had lower representation in the survey sample.

The list continues with the United Kingdom, which accounts for 8% of respondents, Poland with 6% and the Netherlands with 4%.

Spain, Turkey and Australia each account for 3% of the tourists included in the survey.

Belgium, Denmark, the United States of America, Hungary and the Czech Republic each account for 2%.

Ukraine, Lithuania, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Austria, Brazil, Estonia and Switzerland each account for 1% of respondents.

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Can a protest become a tourist destination? If you had asked a tour operator that question ten years ago, they most likely would have laughed.

Protests drive tourists away. This is one of the oldest rules in the travel industry. They create uncertainty, booking cancellations and images that tourism ministries try to avoid at all costs.

But the TikTok era is changing that logic too. On an internet where algorithms reward authentic events rather than perfect photos, protests have begun to generate a new form of tourist curiosity.

It is no coincidence that researchers are now calling it “protest tourism.” Until yesterday, the phenomenon was associated with Hong Kong, Paris, Barcelona or Belgrade.

Today, for the first time, its traces are also appearing in Albania.

Namrata Sarma did not come from India to protest. She came to hike in the Albanian Alps. She had saved photos of Theth, Lake Bovilla and mountain trails on her phone.

Tirana had only been planned as a two-day stop before continuing the adventure. But the algorithm had other plans.

Before the plane landed in Rinas, Instagram and TikTok had served her a different Albania. Videos of people marching at night with pink flamingos, banners and thousands of phone lights. She did not know that a few days later she would become part of those videos.

When she went out after dinner near Skanderbeg Square, it was around ten at night. At first, she thought she was just accidentally passing by a protest. Then she realized she had walked right into the middle of it.

“The city looked as if it had become a single voice,” she recalls. “You could hear horns, chants, flags. There were young people, elderly people, entire families.”

This is no longer just a personal story. It is how tourism works in 2026. The protests have received broad international attention. They have been covered by media outlets such as the Financial Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and Vanity Fair, among many others.

On social media, videos from the protests are circulating with millions of views. Just one video posted by an American tourist on Instagram, in which he is seen smiling among protesters in Tirana, reached more than 280,000 views within just a few hours.

Gabriel Bolling, a 22-year-old from Florida, came to Albania on a planned trip to discover the country, but found himself swept up in the enthusiasm of young Albanians marching and demanding the prime minister’s resignation and the cancellation of a massive tourism project in the protected Narta lagoon.

On TikTok and Instagram, dozens of videos have appeared of tourists filming the marches, banners and the festive atmosphere of the protests.

Unlike the classic image of tense demonstrations, the Albanian protests are being presented as family gatherings attended by young people, children and the elderly. In some Instagram posts, tourists are addressed directly with the message:

“Don’t worry, the protests are peaceful.” This has created an interesting contrast. While protesters aim to stop a tourism project, the protests themselves are generating a different kind of tourism.

There are still no statistics showing how many people have booked a trip to Albania solely to take part in a protest.

But on Instagram and TikTok, posts are increasing from tourists showing that the protest has become part of their experience in Tirana.

Some say they found themselves by chance in the middle of the marches, others post videos from the protests to millions of followers, while the diaspora is organizing special trips to join the movement.

In fact, Tirana is experiencing something similar to what other European cities have seen in recent years. Modern tourists are not looking only for monuments or beaches. They are looking for stories.

They are looking for events they can share on social media. A mass protest, with pink flamingos as its symbol, creative banners and thousands of participants creates exactly the kind of content that TikTok’s algorithms spread quickly.

“I couldn’t see it only as a spectacle,” the Indian tourist tells Monitor. She says that in India, protests remind her of barricades, water cannons and fear. In Tirana, she felt the opposite. “I have never been at a protest where I felt so safe.”

Perhaps this will never be measured in INSTAT statistics. No one records how many tourists extend their stay because they came across a protest, how many videos they produce, how many bookings they inspire or how many times TikTok’s algorithm turns a civic march into free advertising for a destination.

But the story of Namrata and many tourists like her shows that modern tourism is changing./ Monitor

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